This is Broadway history gold. The summer after Cats opened, my parents came to New York to see me in the show, when most of us from the original cast were still in it. My dad used to take movies of everything -- with a movie camera. This is from when they came backstage to see me getting into my Cats make-up. It's mostly silent. The voice at the beginning is my mom's, and there are glimpses of my dad, when he'd briefly handed my mom the camera. The year was 1983. I celebrated my dad's 49th birthday with him that week. It would turn out to be his last. 20 years later, I told his story in a one-man play, "Willie's Son", which had its acclaimed 10-week run in Los Angeles.
The video starts at the front of the theatre on Broadway and then takes us around the corner to the stage door on 7th Avenue. We pass the Sign-In board, up the stairs, past Betty Buckley's dressing room, then to my dressing room, which I shared with several others. All the cast members put on their own make-up. Hairdressers added the wigs, glued to our faces to cover our human ears. Also seen in the video is original cast member Whitney Kershaw (with the long blonde hair) doing stretch warm-ups on the floor.